Which comes first? Your product or your mission? In today’s episode you will learn the benefits of creating your mission before your toy or toy brand. Defining the purpose of your brand will guide you on the creative journey, and can give you a powerful reason to invest so much time and money into your toy ideas. Today’s podcast guests are Janene Russell and Ms. Monica Sutton, also known as Ms. Monica. Janene is the key lead in preschool brands and preschool brand manager at Educational Insights. Ms. Monica is an early childhood educator and child behavior specialist with a hit YouTube channel with over 500,000 subscribers. In today’s episode, you will learn some valuable lessons about how to develop your mission. You’ll learn the power of saying no, how sticking to your mission can lead to more opportunities, and how things that didn’t go so well can actually help to define and guide your mission.

Small toy companies and toy inventors that only want to order a small amount of product can’t work with factories in China, right? Wrong! Today’s episode is practical and essential for anyone who wants to manufacture a toy or a game. Today’s podcast guest Kate Khvorostianova is an account manager with LongPack Toys, a toy and gift factory in China. She tells you how to present yourself professionally, why it's important to market parallel to manufacturing, and all of the services LongPack Toys provides. Kate says that LongPack is really interested in working with smaller toy companies, entrepreneurs, and Kickstarter based projects. Is that you? Listen to the episode to get all the information, then reach out to Kate to start the manufacturing process.

Todays’ podcast guest, Isaac Elliott-Fisher’s, experiences in the film industry as a cinematographer led him on an unexpected journey to creating The Village Toy Castle, a destination that is part museum, part toy store, part play space, and soon to be the center for his new manufacturing techniques for plastic toys and toy parts. In today’s episode, you’ll find out how much money goes into creating a brand new toy store, what kind of out-of-the-box thinking helped the process, and about the benefits of having a generous and open mindset. You’ll also find out how to get in touch with Isaac about pitching your product for his store!

What happens after you go viral? How do you go viral in the first place? There is no perfect formula to make something go viral on social media, but there are things you can do to make it more likely. Today’s guest, Danielle Murrell Cox, self-published a coloring book called Black Queens & Kings, and then went viral, which led to a publishing deal with Harper Collins. Now she has created her own line of plush toys, Zuri and Dre, based on the characters she created. In today’s episode, you will learn what factors led to Danielle going viral, and what happened afterward. You’ll also hear about the personal experiences that led Danielle to create her characters with wide noses and natural hairstyles. Finally, you will find out some amazing tips for how to progress in your business when you’re not sure what to do next.

Becoming an entrepreneur looks different for each person who chooses this path. However, one thing that can help any entrepreneurial project is putting yourself, including your background and your history, into the story and finding a meaningful motivation for your ideas. Keewa Nurulla, today’s podcast guest, is the founder of Kido Chicago, a brick-and-mortar kids’ store that also has an online shop. It started as a store for kids clothing that Keewa designed herself, and then branched out into books and toys. Keewa talks about how her family’s entrepreneurial background going back to Black Wall Street and her history as a Black performance artist shaped her vision. Learn about how she designed her store, the frustrations she has encountered with the photos on product packaging, and the number one piece of advice she received when starting her business.

As a toy entrepreneur it’s pretty likely that your cost of doing business is high. From manufacturing the perfect toy or game, to going to trade shows, building a website, nurturing an email list, dealing with returns, and damaged goods…you may be finding it’s hard to do anything for free, even if you do it yourself. Today’s podcast episode is going to share how you market your toy or game product for free. Now look, we know nothing is truly free in this world, so these marketing tactics will cost you time to implement. But with time and the tools provided in this episode you could be marketing your toy or game product for free in a way that compounds your efforts over time.

Have you ever heard of content marketing? You likely already know what direct marketing is, the action of promoting and selling your toy or game product. But what is content marketing? Content marketing is a long game approach to creating awareness for your toy or game product. It takes time, consistency, and a deep understanding of your Ideal Target Market. In this episode I share several ideas for how you can start using content marketing for your toy or game product and highlight a couple of game entrepreneurs who are utilizing content marketing for their product in a brilliant way. Tap listen to find out what that is.

Long form episode description goes here.Your own life is the best inspiration for your game and toy ideas. Just think of the best times with your friends and family and you might come up with an idea. Today’s podcast guest did just that. Today’s guest is Greg Watson. In episode 72 of MITTI you heard him talking about working with a distributor to get your toy or game into retail. Now he has a new card game that he created with his husband. The game, Poof, is available on Amazon. In this episode, you’ll learn all about Greg’s personal inspiration for the game. You’ll also learn what game mechanics are, how Greg tested his game in the middle of a pandemic, and what to consider for packaging differences between online sales versus retail shelf space. You’ll also learn about Greg’s pricing strategy for this game as well as some future predictions for the toy industry.

Is your toy idea begging to see the spotlight? Do you have a game idea swimming around in your imagination? You may be a burgeoning toy inventor! However, if you are ready to fully flesh out your toy idea, brand, and marketing, you may be a toy entrepreneur. What is the difference between these two toy industry tracks?

Today’s guest is Chrissy Fagerholt. She is a graduate of the Toy Creators Academy and already has a successful game out with Goliath and has two more games coming out soon. In today’s episode, Chrissy tells us about making the jump from toy inventor to toy entrepreneur. She explains a bit of her inventing process, how the shift to toy industry entrepreneur happened, and where in the process of inventing a toy she starts to come up with marketing and branding ideas. You will also find out how the Toy Creators Academy helped Chrissy to make the toy industry connections that led her to figure out how to make toy industry entrepreneurship work for her.

At the beginning of June, The Toy Coach was invited to give a keynote speech at the Science Museum Oklahoma’s Inspire and Be Inspired Event. This 2nd annual Convening of Makers and Educators presented by Oklahoma EPSCoR. This weekend provided STEAM educators, artists and makers an opportunity to inspire and be inspired as they connected to share ideas and resources. The creative community learned, laughed and explored great ideas together. The museum is over 390K square feet of creative exhibitions and experiences for kids and parents alike.

This year the keynote address was delivered by internationally recognized Toy Coach, Azhelle Wade. During the talk Azhelle shares tips for Unlocking Creativity, and thanks to Science Museum Oklahoma, this talk is being shared on The Toy Coach Podcast! During today’s episode you’ll hear Azhelle explain 3 steps to unlocking creativity for anything! You’ll learn how to implement step 1, market research, step 2, getting to know your audience, and step 3, toy math. You’ll leave this episode not only feeling inspired but you may even Unlock Your Zone of Toy Genius.

Have you ever struggled with the idea of promoting your brand on social media? Well lucky for you, today’s podcast episode focuses on how to make social media marketing fun! Our guest is a graphic designer, and all around creative gal who knows the power of creativity and playfulness in marketing. Deanna uses humor and empathy to help her clients feel more comfortable being themselves while marketing their business and connecting with their ideal clients.

In today’s podcast episode we talk about the wonderful world of GIF’s and why they may be your next marketing tool for your toy business! During this episode we ideate on ways to get creative with the use of GIFs so you can potentially rack up a million views on your GIF’s like Deanna. By the time you finish listening to today’s episode you’ll know that it’s not about how fancy your design tools are, but it’s all about how you use them. Tap play to listen and learn with the latest podcast episode featuring The Toy Coach and Deanna Seymour!

If you have a brand or product you should consider adding licensing to your business model. Licensing is a great way for toy manufacturers to borrow the authority of powerful brands and grow their own revenue. A great licensing deal can help growing brands expand to various consumer goods categories while avoiding the added cost of manufacturing. If you’re ready to learn more about how licensing can benefit your toy business, you should consider attending the Las Vegas Licensing Expo next year. But before you sign up, listen to this podcast for 9 tricks and tips for first time visitors to the Licensing Expo.

The Licensing Expo has over 200 exhibitors each year, including notable brands like Netflix, Lego, Paramount, Mattel, and more. In past years, over 16,000 people have attended, coming from more than 60 countries. Attendees include licensees, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, licensing agents, and more. Each show has more than 5,000 products or brands on display, allowing you to catch trends and get innovative ideas. Of course, there are many representatives from the toy industry, but there are also people in attendance from the fashion world, gaming, animation, and more.

The Toy Coach’s entrepreneurial journey didn’t start in toys, but instead it started in fashion. In 2012 Azhelle Wade, aka The Toy Coach created a fashion brand called Costumize Me. What started as a made to order costume company, evolved into a convertible event wear brand with the tag line 1 dress 100 ways to wear. This two part episode series details a toy designer’s entrepreneurial journey in the world of fashion. And because this is The Toy Coach podcast, every lesson learned and mistake made is packaged into a lesson that you can take and apply to your toy journey today.

The Toy Coach’s entrepreneurial journey didn’t start in toys, but instead it started in fashion. In 2012 Azhelle Wade, aka The Toy Coach created a fashion brand called Costumize Me. What started as a made to order costume company, evolved into a convertible event wear brand with the tag line 1 dress 100 ways to wear. This two part episode series details a toy designer’s entrepreneurial journey in the world of fashion. And because this is The Toy Coach podcast, every lesson learned and mistake made is packaged into a lesson that you can take and apply to your toy journey today.

Today’s podcast guest has been called The Godfather of Toys and is a social media icon in the collectors toy space. Jeremey’s journey in toys started at a clothing and toy store called Only Kids in Memphis, Tennessee. In today’s episode Jeremy provides advice on “making it” in the corporate toy world and what it takes to be an entrepreneur. You’ll learn the difference between collectibles both physical and digital, and yep that means we talk about NFTs! The consistent theme in today’s episode is resilience. We explore moments in Jeremy’s past where his resilience helped him move forward and we discuss the relationship between that never-give-up attitude and success.

If you’re at a place in your toy journey where you need a little inspiration to push you forward, listen to this episode. At the end of our conversation Jeremy shares two of the best pieces of advice he received in his career. The first helped him feel empowered when taking on a challenging new role, and the second prepared him for the man he is today. Ready for a little toyspiration from a major leader in the toy space? Tap play and give this episode a listen.

All across the globe we are seeing a massive increase in prices and reduction in quality. In fact it’s so prevalent, it has a few nicknames. Shrinkflation and Skimpflation are two practices of reducing the quality of goods and services to maintain margin, and reducing the actual contents of goods and quality of services while increasing the cost. The goal of cost reduction is typically to reduce cost without affecting overall aesthetic or playability. But when companies have to make up for 10% or more in lost margin, there’s no way around affecting the size and sometimes the quality of a product. As an inventor these monetary changes could affect the categories you focus on and as an entrepreneur or maker, it can affect the amount of components you need for your toy or game to stay competitive. If you want to maintain a cash-positive toy business you’ve got to look at the bottom line, and that means adjusting when margin and revenue take an unfortunate tumble.

Mission driven toy creators like Julie Dini have one major goal in common. It’s to improve the lives of the kids and families that interact with their products. Today on The Toy Coach Podcast, our guest Julie Dini shares her toy journey from handmade prototype to recurring sales online. Julie’s product, Dealing In Feelings, helps kids understand simple to complex emotions through identification and gameplay! Whether you are a buyer or an aspiring toy entrepreneur, you’ll enjoy this inspirational and informative chat with toy entrepreneur and Developmental Psychologist, Julie Dini.